Time to get lawn ready for cold days

More nitrogen will help green up grass

As daylight hours begin to shorten and cooler weather becomes more regular, it's time to feed fescue, ryegrass and other cool-season lawns.

Many nurseries and garden centers sell bags of granular lawn fertilizer designed for use during the fall and winter. "Pretty much any will work," says Jeff Kollenkark, owner of Weed Man in Fresno, Calif.

What you want to look for are bags with higher nitrogen numbers. The nitrogen number is the first number in a group of three that are indicated on bags, he says. "The main thing is giving it nitrogen to green up your lawn," he says.

Depending on the size of your lawn, a 14- to 17-pound bag that covers about 5,000 square feet should be enough for many urban-size yards, says Tim Wilson, the store manager at Orchard Supply Hardware in Fresno.

To apply the fertilizer, there are hand-held spreaders or larger ones on wheels that you roll across your lawn. "For small yards, a hand-held would be fine," Kollenkark says. "For larger yards, use a broadcast or drop spreader."

Broadcast spreaders will throw the fertilizer out in a fanlike shape. Granules in a drop spreader will drop straight down in a horizontal row. "Broadcast spreaders can cover more area quicker, but if you have areas you don't want (the fertilizer) to touch, you wouldn't want to use this one," Wilson says.

Wheeled drop spreaders are more accurate, but if you miss any areas, they are more likely to show, Kollenkark says. "The easier thing to do is, if the grass is dewy, you can see where the wheels have been," he says. "You want to overlap the wheel marks."